When I first started this project, I remembered my own experience as a tuba
player in college when I had struggled to find solo repertoire to play. Now, one has to
understand that I used to be a pretty weak player in college as I had been involved in
music and bands up to that point mostly to participate in a social outlet. I entered the
department of music at the University of Notre Dame after two years of mediocre
performance in the College of Engineering as a computer science major. In February of
my junior year, I had to play my first jury after years of playing only tuba parts in concert
band. Having never played a solo before, finding a piece that suited my ability level was
a task to behold. My teacher finally settled on Walter Hartley’s Suite for Unaccompanied
Tuba, and I played the first movement, the March. I worked up the piece enough to get
through it, but it certainly was not performance ready (at least by my standards today).
Being the player that I was at the time, I saw it as short, not too rhythmically hard, and
simple enough to play. In truth, it was extraordinarily rangy with difficult skips,
stylistically complicated, and borderline atonal, so much that only one with a great ear
could hear the upcoming notes to play.
Looking back on that experience makes me wonder why there is such a lack of
literature for that level of tuba student. The large majority of recognized solo repertoire
is commissioned by the professional players, so it is usually unattainable by someone not
on the music major track. Besides, most composers who want to feature the tuba choose
to do so using the beautiful tone of the instrument in the highest part of the range, out of
reach for most high school players. In any event, there is such a dearth of known
repertoire for this level that I chose to do some research and find some published works
that would be beneficial for the average high school level tuba player.